Businesses traditionally look for effective ways in which to make their products available to potential buyers. In addition to sales through physical “brick and mortar” stores, innovative ways to sell products are often used especially to dispose of old or excess inventory. The advent of the Internet along with the accompanying revolution in computer and network technology has created new sales paradigms and allowed businesses to establish their own electronic commerce (“e-commerce”) presence through the use of, for example, Internet Web sites. E-commerce sales have steadily grown and now account for a significant portion of business-to-consumer as well as business-to-business sales. Auctions make up a significant portion of e-commerce sales and have grown into an increasingly more important sales paradigm.
The improvement in network and computer capabilities along with the mass availability and development of the Internet facilitates these alternative methods of sales such as auctions. Network-based electronic auctions, such as for example those conducted over the Internet, may allow a seller considerable control over an auction and may increase auction participation. For example, a seller may want to publish multiple auctions for a product. The Internet and network-based computing provide the ability to aggregate large numbers of bidders for an auction in an easier and generally less costly manner than through traditional auctions. Though network-based auctions (e.g., Internet-based auctions) provide significant advantages, the reliance on third party auction providers has limited a seller's control of its auctions in a number of ways. This includes the use of rules as to the conformance of auction procedures and the loss of control over the format of the auction and bidding process.
Third party auction providers provide a large scale e-commerce community portal that brings together large numbers of buyers and sellers who gather to trade in goods and services. For example, third party auction providers have become online marketplaces providing a powerful platform for the sale of goods and services among a passionate community of individuals and businesses. Everyday, millions of items across thousands of categories are available for sale by auction and for a fixed price, enabling trade on a local, national, and international basis with customized Internet Web sites in markets around the world. These third party auction providers may provide auction services for the seller as well as access to a ready pool of potential buyers but in exchange they may require a seller to conform their auctioning processes and procedures. In addition, a third party auction provider typically takes a fee that may be fixed or proportional to the value of the auctioned goods and/or services. In both cases, the seller loses some degree of control over the auction process in exchange for using the third party auction service.
In addition to the limitations on auction procedures and processes imposed by a third party auction provider, a business may not be able to make maximum use of its business information in providing and generating auctions through a third party auction service. Businesses have typically kept their information, including information regarding their assets and inventory they wish to sell or auction off, in database systems that are part of their corporate information systems. Conventional systems provide limited linking between these business information management systems and online Web auction services. Therefore, manual involvement with the Web auction service is required for each auction or sales posting conducted. These problems may be overcome and the limitations of third party auction services avoided by providing auction services through a seller's own e-commerce site.